Grants

Search or browse below to see past Field of Interest grants. You may search by recipient organization name, project name, or city. Additionally, in the sidebar you may filter the grants displayed by year, interest or grant amount.

Abbotsford Community Services

CREATE COMMUNITY and CASH through CRAFTS

• This project originated from:
o Life Chats (LC)is a youth led peer support group and was developed through the HECC initiative to engage and connect youth with lived care experience (WLCE) to each other in Abbotsford.
o Learned through LC that youth:
• Were still not aware of the supports that they could access after 19 and wanted one on one information from other youth.
• Benefitted from having something to do with their hands while connecting with each other. Crafts provided this outlet.
• Wanted to make crafts that were marketable.
HECC youth developed the following idea and were involved in all aspects of the proposal, including development of the budget.
This new proposed project provides
1. Continuation and expansion of Life Chats including connection to resources
2. Research opportunity on social craft enterprise
3. Development of resource for youth leaders to start LC in their own area.
a. Purpose:
i. To build community within youth WLCE and develop young leaders.
ii. To provide youth WLCE with helpful resources in their community.
iii. To provide an opportunity to participate in building skills in craft making.
iv. To learn about craft making as a social enterprise
v. To facilitate youth connection to craft markets to feature their art
vi. To share with other youth leaders in other communities how to create a Life Chats group.

$10,000.00

2017

Access to Media Education Society

DisPLACEmeant

Providing an avenue of expression for youth with firsthand experience of displacement, this program honours their lived experiences while supporting efforts to enrich public understanding of the contributing factors + consequences of displacement + forced migration.
The production phase of the program will see 24 youth creating 6 new (dis)placed-based digital stories, and up to 24 vlogs. The outreach phase will see participants publically screening and presenting their work, creating / facilitating workshops + online resources designed to increase awareness and prompt dialogue in schools + beyond.
Featuring youth-made videos, lesson plans, background info + activities, the resources developed will:
• Enable newcomer + indigenous youth to see themselves/their experiences reflected in the school curriculum, while easing some of the burden of explanation off of them.
• Assist educators, students, + support workers in: (i) unlearning biases, dispelling misconceptions, challenging racialized violence, and institutionalized hate; (ii) learning about circumstances forcing Indigenous, refugee and newcomer students to leave their homeland, challenges faced in the process, and possible ways forward.
The learning/unlearning that these resources facilitate are essential aspects of creating educational environments that are inclusive, support marginalized youth in “transitioning through and out of the education system”, and enhance their potential for broader civic engagement

$75,000.00

2017

ACORN Institute Canada

Strengthen Communities by Closing the Digital Divide

AIC, partnered with ACORN Canada, will explore the links between the digital economy and health outcomes for low income people. Systemic change will be influenced by connecting community members with leadership development, community engagement, and opportunities to inform policy to address root causes of inequality in health and prospects. Evidencing lived experience to challenge the current telecommunications policy architecture, the project aims to unlock the various health benefits resulting from digital inclusion. Overall, we seek to address the intersections between poverty, health and the digital economy to close the digital divide and improve health outcomes for low income Canadians.

$10,000.00

2017

Alberni-Clayoquot Regional District

A Protocol for Collective Action: Steps towards an Airshed Management Plan for the Alberni Valley

This projects aims to improve air quality in the Alberni Valley. Air pollution is a complex problem that crosses political boundaries and involves everyone. The Alberni Valley is particularly vulnerable to air pollution due to its geography and climate.
The Alberni Air Quality Society intends to partner with government bodies, organizations, and the local community to create and formalize a process by which to manage air quality. This will provide an overarching framework to address air pollution in all its forms, whether that be from backyard burning or industrial emissions. This collective action would reduce the human illness and the economic impacts that are associated with air pollut

$10,000.00

2017

Animals in Science Policy Institute

Replacing animals in secondary school science education

A switch to non-animal methods in education is important for animal welfare, education, and student empowerment. This project aims to understand the cultural shift in secondary teaching required so that non-animal alternatives for dissection are more readily adopted. We plan to: 1) survey BC teachers to assess their perspectives on dissection, and identify obstacles to and opportunities for the adoption of non-animal alternatives; 2) poll the BC public to assess their views on dissection; and 3) hold an expert panel event that will bring together international experts on the issue of non-animal alternatives for dissection to identify novel strategies for creating cultural change in teaching

$10,000.00

2017

Replacing animals in secondary education: a path to building an ethical culture of science

The practice of dissection causes harm to millions of animals and is a barrier to building an ethical culture of science that respects animal life. Our project aims to influence a systemic and cultural shift in secondary teaching so that non-animal alternatives to dissection are used more often, and become the norm. We support pre- and in-service teachers with lesson plans and materials and encourage student leadership with our outreach activities. Using alternatives in early science education will influence future scientists to more readily consider and use non-animal methods. This shift will reduce the numbers of animals used in science and subjected to the related welfare harms.

$150,000.00

2017

Arnica Artist Run Centre Society

Keep and support emerging artists in our regional community

Exhibition of artwork completed after primary training is of utmost importance for an artist’s career advancement. A systemic problem for recent BFA graduates is finding a community outside of school that supports their artistic practice including the tools, space and funding to make art at the same caliber as in school and to continue to get fresh influence and critical feedback on their work from senior artists from elsewhere in order to grow their ideas and expertise. To prevent emerging artists from moving away from our remote region, we are proposing to pair a senior BC artist with similar art concerns with a local emerging artist to create artwork to be exhibited in Arnica's gallery.

$10,000.00

2017

Art Starts in Schools Society

Art is essential - not extra

There is tremendous opportunity for artists and teachers to collaborate as partners in education and explore arts integration in classrooms. Our project seeks to increase the employability of artists in schools. Infusion offers training for artists to develop a complementary teaching practice, woven into their robust artistry. Teaching artists have greater opportunities to work in schools as they can speak the language of education. Infusion provides educators with professional development to expand their understanding of art in education. Our project seeks to change:
- Basic routines: Artists interested in working in schools need support as navigating school culture can be intimidating and even prohibitive. Teachers teach the way they teach and need a compelling reason to explore new approaches like arts integration.
- Resources: The role of artists in schools needs to be expanded in order to re-establish the flow of resources.
- Beliefs: Young people are taught that art is separate from the rigor of ‘academic’ subjects.
Since 2012, we have supported 97 artists to become teaching artists. This grant will help us launch the next phase, which is to deploy resources to the following: mentorship, marketing systems, advocacy and evaluation. This next phase will help us examine whether the role of art is actually expanding in the education system, and inevitably our community, and if the perception of how young people are taught to perceive art is actually changing.

$225,000.00

2017

Arts in Action Society

Groundswell Grow

Currently, we are working with our alumni and community partners to plan and design Groundswell Grow.
We will launch Groundswell Grow with a weekly marketplace on Granville Island in summer 2017. It will provide living inspiration for how to do business that benefits community, and give young ventures access to market, real estate, and an extended community support network. Advanced programs will include mentoring and market stand training, and support services for the early stage social venture community with the help of our community partners. As successful young entrepreneurs “graduate” out of the marketplace incubator stage they will populate the city with social businesses that work for communities and become mentors for new Groundswell Grow participants. The ecosystem will expand to include other local, young, social ventures who get access to the marketplace and a supportive network of training, mentoring and venture services. The marketplace setting will increase opportunities for public outreach and education around community based ventures and social entrepreneurship.
This model will change the flow of resources through the business system: more small scale, unlikely entrepreneurs will have the knowledge and access to financial and social support to be able to create successful social ventures that provide them with meaningful employment. And, more businesses will exist that add social and environmental value to communities, not just monetary value.

$150,000.00

2017

Association of Neighbourhood Houses of British Columbia

A Reggio Emilia-Inspired Early Learning Centre for BC

Our project is to create a Reggio-based Learning Centre at Frog Hollow that will train and support child care centres and school teachers across BC to implement the Reggio Emilia approach. Activities will include tours of our childcare programs, introductory presentations on the Reggio approach, the production of a practice-based training video, both customized and general workshop presentations, consulting services for centres and teachers, web-based promotion of the Reggio approach and our services, and support for networking and mutual support between centres implementing the Reggio approach.
We will begin by focusing on Metro Vancouver and eventually offer training and consultation across the province. There are 102,908 child care spaces in BC for ages 0-12, which is approximately 20% of the total number of children. Our goal is to make the Reggio Emilia approach available to as many of the child care centres as possible. Scaling out the Reggio Emilia approach to centres across BC will result in increased school readiness along the EDI vulnerability areas, a closer alignment with the BC Early Learning Framework, and assist with the transition of children to the school system as the Reggio Emilia approach is both consistent with and complimentary to BC's New Curriculum. We anticipate a change in the early learning system in both the routines and beliefs of the system.
The Learning Centre will become a social enterprise and will eventually become self-sustaining.

$10,000.00

2017

Resurfacing History: Land and Lives in Mount Pleasant

Resurfacing History addresses how living in urban centred affects the cultural continuity for Aboriginal people and explores how to build resilience to increase social connection and belonging. The project focuses on developing a community process for promoting understanding between cultural value systems, and to build capacity for Aboriginal people to be part of a mechanism that preserves culture, explores knowledge and integrates actionable steps that can make social ecosystems and infrastructure work for urban communities. Creating onversations focused on land use from Aboriginal worldview & shared pathways are critical for nurturing solidarity & connection.

$10,000.00

2017

West End Community Food Centre

Over a third of people in the West End of Vancouver live on a low and inadequate income and are food insecure. Historically society has responded to hunger (food insecurity) with charity, even though we know that quick fixes do not change the circumstances for people who are living in poverty. Gordon Neighbourhood House is working with partners to shift the conversation and action towards justice and away from charity. As a community, we have the power to spark long lasting changes, whether within our community or at a policy level, that ensure everyone’s right to good food by eliminating poverty. We do this work by bringing people together through food programs, dialogues, and training.

$150,000.00

2017

Aunt Leah's Independent Lifeskills Society

Foster Youth Food Guide

Foster youths face a multitude of challenges after aging out of government care, from housing to education and employment. However, one of the most immediate and pressing obstacles youth face after losing support, is where they’re going to find their next meal. Due to a lack of support, we know that over half of BC foster youth will become dependent on income assistance (MCFD, 2015). This means that for the majority of foster youth, their weekly food allowance is approximately $18 after factoring in living expenses (Raise the Rates, 2015). As a result, many foster youths need to find alternative sources of free food or confront days of hunger.
The good news is that there are many organizations, like Aunt Leah's Place, that offer free food and community supports in Metro Vancouver. Using youth experience and knowledge of these organizations, the Foster Youth Food Guide will create an online food resource that helps young people locate organizations that are transit accessible, safe and promote food security. The guide will be built using Google Maps’ API and include clear directions, detailed descriptions, and pictures or videos of each space. To gather this data, youth researchers will travel and review each location.
We believe this project falls directly within Fostering Change’s small grants funding approach, as it is a youth-led project that fills a gap with actionable knowledge and builds relationships between foster youth and their communities in Metro Vancouver.

$4,480.00

2017

Bootstrap Project: Employing Youth from Care

Very rarely do young people get their first jobs and employment experiences due to ‘merit’. Instead, social connections and mentoring are the actual bridging mechanisms for entering young people into first jobs, thus giving them the opportunity to learn essential employment skills (e.g. interpersonal skills, time management, work ethic, etc.). Foster youth necessarily, and through no fault of their own, come from upbringings of poverty, abuse and neglect and are removed from their family. They do not have the necessary strong social and familial networks in order to get these first job experiences. This project will find empathetic employers who will provide this mentoring role.

‘Community Sourcing’ creates multiple legacy projects to build upon and carry forward the work of the Fostering Change initiative through a bi-annual youth-led and youth-organized “crowdsourcing” dinner.
Dinner attendees pay an entrance fee to get dinner and a vote. Attendees hear presentations on community-building projects from youth in-and-from foster care. At the event, attendees eat, talk, share resources, and vote on the project they think benefits the community and youth-from-care the most. At the end of the night, ballots are counted and the winning presenter goes home with all money raised (around $2,000) to carry out the project. Thus, youth in-and-from foster care raise money, build community support and get connections to local resources that can help carry out their project.
This Community Sourcing dinner occurs twice a year with opportunities for presenters to receive speaking & engagement training in preparation for their presentation. Two youth in-and-from foster care are hired to run the project, including organizing and building capacity of presenters, promotion of the bi-annual dinners, plus sourcing sponsors and supporters.
The premise of this project is largely borrowed from SOUP, a model of community project ‘dinner’ crowd-sourcing that has proven successful around the world. People want to engage and participate in this type of community-building activity and this project opens up this important opportunity to youth in-and-from foster care.

$37,500.00

2017

Bard on the Beach Theatre Society

Bard on the Beach - Community Diversity

Our proposed project is an overall Community Diversity Strategy that is aligned with three categories:
1. Training/Employment: We will expand our Artistic Associates by adding two new positions to include more gender and culturally diverse voices. Bard’s Associates are involved in aspects of artistic planning including programming, casting and development activities. These new Associates will identify new projects, build new relationships, and work on increasing diversity in our audience. In addition, we will hire cultural consultants for specific productions to protect cultural sensitivities. We will increase the Bard Studio workshops and train more diverse performers, increasing the number of qualified artists to be employed on our stage and across Canada. Bard’s artistic team will travel throughout Canada to identify and collaborate with more diverse artists.
2. Education: We will add additional Bard in the Classroom and Neighbourhood workshops (provided for free); develop a Distance Education Streaming Education component; and train more Teaching Artists to establish a more diverse roster of teachers for all our programs. We will host and engage in community wide forums to discuss diversity issues, share our findings and encourage others to be more inclusive of many perspectives and voices.
3. Development of New Work: We will develop diverse plays from different cultures through the Bard Lab Program and focus on engaging more gender diverse playwrights and creators.

$73,875.00

2017

BC Aboriginal Child Care Society

Transitions for Urban Indigenous Children and Families: Documentation and Partnership Development

This project responds to parent and early childhood educator concerns about transitions to formal schooling for urban Indigenous children, and the difficult conversations that are necessary—especially concerning cultural safety—among urban Indigenous early childhood education and schools. It is important to document challenges and gather invested partners to create changes to systems to properly support urban Indigenous children and families’ transitions on their terms, and those of UNDRIP. The project also explores the challenges of supporting requisite Indigenous leadership and related partnership development in an era of reconciliation among Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

$44,000.00

2017

BC Living Arts

Acis and Galatea: A Gender Liberation Opera

This project will present a re-conceptualized performance of G. F. Handel’s 18th c. opera, Acis & Galatea at The Orpheum Annex, Sept. 15-17, 2017. In this re-telling, both lead characters will be portrayed by and depicted as women. The story follows their romantic relationship and the persecution they and their LGBTQ community face as a result of their sexual orientations. This project will generate a social dialogue about the struggles and underrepresentation of the LGBTQ community as it has existed throughout the centuries and it will serve as a platform for producers and artistic directors from four unique Vancouver cultural institutions (re:Naissance Opera, BC Living Arts, Early Music Vancouver, Cor Flammae) to collaboratively address these issues in their respective creative programming.
With this project, we will promote systemic change by:
-Testing a collaborative production model and developing a prototype for future artistic collaborations amongst Vancouver and BC cultural institutions.
-Demonstrating how artistic productions and programming - in this case - opera, can be adapted and presented in a way that promotes positive representations of the LGBTQ community and other underrepresented people in the classical music world.
-Using the outcomes of this collaborative production to encourage other Vancouver cultural institutions to consider how their artistic programming might better address and elevate the role of the LGBTQ community in our cultural history.

$25,000.00

2017

Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art

Indigenous Communities Consultation Project

Through this project, we are seeking to change the status quo of the ways in which arts institutions create and deliver programming. We are addressing the colonial history of arts institutions and exploring ways to break down the barriers between institutions and the Indigenous community. We will address this issue by creating a community consultation process that will seek to build strong, long-lasting, and reciprocal relationships with community organizations and members. Our goal is to create a space that builds bridges between people. We want to create a space that is shaped by and for the community to support them in participating in safe and accessible educational opportunities.

$10,000.00

2017

Boca del Lupo

Expedition

Expedition is a suite of performance works and installations set in 2167 that explore how climate change might affect our future and how our future selves might look back upon the present. Placing the audience as complicit participants in this collective future, the key creators include scientists, journalists and academics working together with artists to disrupt the inertia of now, drive away despair and engender hope.
If one imagines back to 1867 and considers how people lived their lives, the place of women in society, notions of race and ethnicity, the treatment of the LGBTQ community, it quickly becomes clear that there has been progress. In the study of ethics there is a theory, supported by research, that tells us when two cultures intersect and are not ethically aligned, it is the more progressive ethical position that most often prevails. This is not a linear path, of course, but whether it be the subjugation of women or slavery or colonization, ethicists tell us that liberty, emancipation and independence eventually take the day. It is in this notion of progressive ethics that we found hope for the future and inspiration for this project.
As an iterative and participatory live performance movement, the ongoing nature of presenting a suite of works that share a common frame serves to deepen impact, expand reach and points of access, lengthen engagement and increase the chances of authentic transformation with participants.

$60,000.00

2017

Britannia Community Services Centre Society

Thingery - A Lending Library of Things

Equipment lending libraries are proven models for reducing a neighbourhood's ecological footprint. Despite long established lending library organizations in most Canadian cities, lending libraries struggle to scale. We've worked with three neighbourhoods in Vancouver to show that there's an appetite for more lending libraries that are located directly in neighbourhoods. Our project will pilot three equipment lending libraries, called a Thingery, in shipping containers and through donations of underutilized equipment, provide community members with access to equipment that they don't ever need to own.

$75,000.00

2017

Burnaby Community Connections Society Burnaby Community Services

System Navigation for Burnaby’s Working Poor

10% of Burnaby residents are working but still living in poverty. They are struggling with low wages, under-employment and a high cost of living. The patchwork of available programs are hard to access and aren’t enough to help them break the cycle of poverty.
To empower people with low incomes to change their lives, this project will test a supportive self-advocacy approach, including training on navigating the system, coaching on employment and housing, a community of practice, peer-to-peer mentoring, transportation assistance and temporary housing if needed. To promote system change, a Steering Committee composed of system representatives will share and act on the learnings.

$10,000.00

2017

Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives

Thousands of British Columbians experience poverty and struggle to care for their children, participate in their communities and fulfill their aspirations. Our 2008 report, A Poverty Reduction Plan for BC, identified the key elements of an effective public policy strategy to significantly reduce and eventually eliminate poverty. We seek to build on this work and meaningfully engage with BC’s new government as they launch a basic income pilot and develop a poverty reduction plan. A well-designed, transparent and accountable strategy that targets the root causes of poverty has the potential to be game-changing and greatly improve the health and well-being of communities across the province.

$10,000.00

2017

Canadian Nurses Foundation

BC Indigenous Community Based Mentorship Program Supporting Indigenous Nurses for Success

Indigenous Peoples are committed to advancing the health and wellness of communities. Given the current health care crisis, the numbers and retention of Indigenous nurses must increase to provide needed culturally safe care.
A BC Indigenous community based mentorship program proposes strategies to ensure success of Indigenous nursing students and retention of employed Indigenous nurses.
Partnerships with Indigenous community leaders and organizations, and BC schools of nursing will build on a community needs based framework.
Ensuring Indigenous peoples are fully represented in healthcare roles, has far-reaching implications for the health of Indigenous individuals and communities.

$10,000.00

2017

Cariboo Chilcotin Partners for Literacy Society

Thrive Williams Lake

This project brings together community stakeholders, existing networks, and people with lived experience to implement a community poverty reduction strategy. With an industry based economy, we have an economic environment with a lot of variability. We are also a regional centre providing government, health, education and other services to a large rural region. Poverty here is high, as is the cost of living in comparison with other communities our size. We have low levels of education and a gap between skills availability and economic opportunities. We will work together to identify opportunities to reduce the number of people who live in poverty, and the depth of poverty in our community.